Dozens of women from the Marshall Islands are traveling to the U.S. every year to adopt out their babies to U.S. families despite government efforts to crack down on this unique baby pipeline. We examine the people and practices that are continuing to perpetuate the problem.

University of Hawaii researchers tracked dozens of hungry tiger
sharks to a remote atoll in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine
National Monument this summer. Civil Beat photojournalist Alana
Eagle documents the expedition in this multimedia special report.

A Civil Beat Investigation: In Hawaii’s workers’ comp system, people with long-lasting injuries are often forced to battle doctors hand-picked by insurance companies to get treatment and disability payments.

Filipinos Overtake Japanese As Top Hawaii Group

Filipinos have overtaken Japanese as the top Asian ancestry group in Hawaii, according to new data released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The data reveals that there are 197,497 island residents who identify themselves as Filipino, representing 14.5 percent of the state’s total population of 1.36 million. There are 185,502 residents, or 13.6 percent, who self-identify as Japanese.

Preliminary surveys indicated the change1 had been coming for some time. In the 2009 and 2008 American Community Surveys, Filipinos were estimated to have higher populations than Japanese, though the sample sizes were sufficiently small and the margins of error sufficiently high to make a final conclusions murky.

Comparing the new numbers against the 2000 Census shows that the number of residents of Japanese-ancestry has dropped significantly. It was 201,764 a decade ago, and represented 16.7 percent of the state’s population. During the same time, Hawaii’s Filipino population has grown from 170,635, which was 14.1 percent.

1. An earlier version of this story used the word “flip” to refer to the change in ranking of the two ethnic groups. The word can also be used as slang to refer to persons of Filipino descent. This was not our intention. ↩

2. The 2010 Census figures are only for those who identify as only Asian, not mixed race. For 2000 Census, Civil Beat matched that criteria — only Asian, not mixed-race — and also used the figures for those who selected only one country of ancestry, not those who picked more than one country of ancestry. It’s not readily clear what the criteria are for the figure in the 1990 Census data, so measuring 1990 against 2000 or against 2010 might not be a true apples-to-apples comparison. ↩

Sign up for our FREE morning newsletter and face each day more informed.

Sign up for our FREE morning newsletter and face each day more informed.

Sorry. That's an invalid e-mail.

Thanks! We'll send you a confirmation e-mail shortly.

And don't worry, we hate spam too! You can unsubscribe any time.

The only news outlet in Hawaii dedicated to public affairs reporting.
Our mission is to engage and educate the community on important public issues through in-depth reporting, explanatory and investigative journalism, analysis and commentary.

Best Overall News Site

Civil Beat has been named the best overall news site in Hawaii for the 7th year in a row by the Society of Professional Journalists Hawaii Chapter.